The Pandigital Personal Scanner/Converter—5x7 PanScn04 ($99.99 direct) is one of about 10 scanners Pandigital sells that are basically variations on a theme, with some branded with the Pandigital name and others branded as Kodak. The models vary primarily in the maximum size photo each can scan and whether they can scan strips of film and slides as well as prints. The PanScn04 is one of two models that scans prints only but can scan at up to 5 by 7 inches, making it the obvious choice if your collection of photos includes 5 by 7 inch prints, and you don't need to scan film.

The PanScn04 is nearly identical to the Kodak P570 Personal Photo Scanner ($99.99 direct, 3 stars) that I recently reviewed. In fact, the two differ even less than the Pandigital Personal Photo & Negative Scanner/Converter PanScn05 ($109.99 direct, 4 stars) and it's near twin, the Kodak P460 Personal Photo Scanner ($99.99 direct, 4 stars). At least the PanScn05 and P460 come in different colors, one black and one white. The only obvious physical difference between the PanScn04 and the P570 is the name on the front panel.

This isn't to say that there aren't any differences at all. The PanScn05 comes with a 1GB memory card to scan to instead of the P570's 2GB card. It also comes without Kodak EasyShare, which is basically a photo album program. EasyShare includes commands to print, send to email, and send to Kodak's Creative Center, where you can order photo books, photo mugs, and other products with your photos on them, as well as turn your photos into greeting cards and other items you can print yourself.

Whether Kodak EasyShare comes with your scanner or not isn't much of a difference, however, given that you can download the program from Kodak for free. In every other way, the two scanners seem to be almost identical. I saw little to no difference for setup or scan quality, although I saw a slight difference in speed.

Setup and ScanningThe PanScn04 measures just 1.8 by 7.6 by 3.3 inches (HWD) and offers a 5-inch-wide manual-feed slot in the front with a straight-through path to the back. Setup consists of inserting the supplied 1GB memory card in the front slot and plugging in the power cable.

To scan, you turn the scanner on, optionally set the resolution using a button that toggles between 300 and 600 pixels per inch (ppi), put a photo in one of the two supplied protective sleeves, and insert the sleeve into the input slot. Everything else is automatic, with the scanner grabbing the photo, feeding it, and scanning it to a JPG file, automatically cropping and otherwise choosing settings.

After you finish scanning, you can move the files to your computer on the memory card or connect to your system with the supplied USB cable, wait for the computer to see the memory card as a USB drive, and copy the files. You can also optionally install a utility that will let you scan directly to your computer.

As with the P570, the PanScn04 comes without a photo editor. However, that's consistent with the emphasis on ease of use, since having a photo editor would mean having to invest some time in learning how to use it. The assumption is that you can use the built in tools in your operating system, like the Windows ability to manage, print, and, to some minor extent, edit photos.

Scan SpeedThe PanScn04 shares the P570's ability to let you scan almost as fast as the scanner can go. This is usually not true for manual-feed scanners, because the timed speed doesn't include the extra time you'll spend preparing each original or carefully feeding it so it will go in straight.

The PanScn04 eliminates that extra time by coming with two protective sleeves. Start scanning with the photo inserted into one, and you'll have plenty of time to remove the photo from the other sleeve, put the photo away, insert a new photo in the sleeve, and have it ready when the first scan finishes. You'll need a little extra time to insert each photo, but that shouldn't be more than a second or two per photo.

In my tests, whether scanning to its memory card or to a computer, the PanScn04 took a consistent 15 to 17 seconds to scan at 600 ppi, and 15 to 16 seconds at 300 ppi. These times are essentially the same as for the P570 with one exception. Scanning to a computer at 600 ppi took almost twice as long for the P570, a result that was surprising enough so that I retested both scanners to confirm that I had the times right. There are several possible reasons for the difference, including both hardware and software issues, but Pandigital was unable to provide an explanation.

Also, to put these speeds in context, note that the P460 and PanScn05, which both use a smaller sleeve because of their 4 by 6 maximum scan size, took 10 seconds with the same photos at 300 ppi. Even so, the key point is that the PanScn05 is fast enough so it won't leave you feeling like your waiting for it.

Scan Quality Scan quality, unfortunately, is a close match to the P570's quality, which means it shares the same limitations, with a loss of resolution that comes out as soft focus if you reprint the scans and a loss of both shadow detail (detail based on shading in dark areas) and detail based on shading in bright areas. As with the P570, however, the quality is good enough for casual photographers who just want to get their snapshots into digital format, and don't mind losing some quality in the process.

If you care more about good quality than ease of scanning, you should consider a flatbed scanner, like the Editors' Choice Epson Perfection V300 Photo ($99.99 direct, 4 stars). However, scanning with a flatbed is more cumbersome than using a sheet feeder. Lower quality is the tradeoff you get for the easier scanning. As with the Kodak P570, if you don't mind losing a little image quality and want an easy way to scan your 5- by 7-inch photos, the Pandigital Personal Scanner/Converter—5x7 PanScn04 can do the job, and it may well be the right scanner for your needs.

M. David Stone is an award-winning freelance writer and computer industry consultant. Although a confirmed generalist, with writing credits on subjects as varied as ape language experiments, politics, quantum physics, and an overview of a...

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